


Connoisseur

by finnglas (mjules)



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: five times fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 22:49:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2750009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjules/pseuds/finnglas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or: Five times Phryne bribed Jack with food, and one time Jane did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Connoisseur

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stratisphyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stratisphyre/gifts).



> Jack's relationship with food is one of my very favorite character traits of his throughout the series, and Phryne twigged to this very early in their partnership. I like thinking that Jane is observant enough to have made this connection too. Thank you for your prompt! I hope you enjoy. :) Mild spoilers through the end of Series 2.

**i.**  
As if the gratin wasn’t bad enough (she knows now how much he likes Dot’s potatoes; he should have never let on), there are truffles in the bottom of the basket, along with a polished silver fork. Jack recognizes the pattern as belonging in Miss Fisher’s kitchen; knows it is an open invitation for him to return it.

With information, of course. Even where Miss Fisher is concerned, lunches aren’t free.

He sighs and stares at the potatoes, at the truffles, and picks up the silver fork. He traces the filigree with his thumbnail and silently accepts the consequences of what he’s about to do. The first bite is perfect, butter and salt and cheese all exactly where they should be, and he lets his eyes close on a perfectly indecent sound.

Maybe he’ll even let her read the file for this.

  
 **ii.**  
“At least it’s a free dinner,” Phryne says, and she’s trying to sound light, but there’s been a tension at the corner of her eyes for days, and now it’s in the set of her shoulders too.

“I don’t suppose I can turn down a free dinner,” Jack says, watching her carefully. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Jack,” she murmurs. “I think you’re just trying to get out of eating escargot.”

“I’ve never had escargot,” Jack admits. “And I don’t intend to start now.”

She’s fidgeting with her nails, though, and he lays one hand over hers.

“Phryne,” he says, his voice careful, his touch tentative. “You don’t have to be there. We can identify and arrest him without you.”

“No, it’s all right.” She finally meets his eyes, steel behind her gaze for the first time since they started discussing it. “I can do it. I need to do it.”

He pats her hand, a little awkward, and then draws away. “Well,” he says, clearing his throat with a little grimace. “I guess if you can do that, then I can eat snails.”

She doesn’t quite smile, but it’s an improvement over the way she’s been keeping an eye on the exits like she’s afraid they’ll disappear.

“Let’s go tell our witness, then,” she murmurs, “that he’s having dinner at Cafe Replique.”

  
 **iii.**  
“It wasn’t enough to trick me into hiding out under your stairs by promising me pie, Miss Fisher? Now you want to strong-arm me into attending a -- fashion show.”

“House Fleury’s hors d'oeuvres are divine, Jack. It’s not like it won’t be worth it.” She stretches her legs out, crossed at the ankles, and taps his glass with hers, imperious. “Besides, Dot is modeling one of the dresses, and I know she would like Hugh to see it. She’s going to be lovely.”

“And you’re suggesting that Collins needs a chaperone?”

She takes a sip of her sherry, licks an errant drop off her lower lip with a playful smile. “Perhaps more… a guide. To help him phrase his compliments.”

“Ah.” Jack nods, tilting his own glass and reaching for one of the cubes of cheese resting on the small table between them. “I see your point. Two deaths in one salon seems quite enough.”

“Jack,” Phryne scolds mildly. “Dot couldn’t hurt a fly, much less commit a murder.”

“No, of course not,” Jack says, waving off the accusation with much more ease than he had the first time Dot had been a suspect. “But Collins might just die on his own if he repeats certain… ah, errors.”

“So you’ll come?” Phryne asks, pleased, and Jack tilts his head in concession.

“I could never pass up a good canape,” he admits.

He knows her well enough to know there’s something she isn’t telling him; the way she watches him over her glass says that much at least.

“Good,” she purrs. “I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

  
 **iv.**  
The package is set on his blotter with more decorum than she usually shows, and she perches a hip on the edge of his desk. “I owe you a couple,” she says, flippantly, with a red curve of a smile, as he opens the ribbon-tied cloth.

“Biscuits?” he asks, and then pauses as something occurs to him. He pulls open the drawer of his desk, opens the tin he keeps there. There’s nothing but crumbs along the bottom. “You -- when did you --?”

She shakes her bangs out of her eyes, the twist of her mouth as mischievous as the flutter of her eyelashes. “Well. Technically Hugh found them, but Dot and I rather helped ourselves, so I felt morally obligated to replace them.”

He leans back in his seat with a steady, suspicious kind of look and takes a bite out of the biscuit. It’s better than the ones in his tin; he suspects these are homemade. He catches a crumb that threatens to fall, sucks it off his thumb.

“Of course, I didn’t make them,” she says, conspiratorial. “Mr. Butler did. What do you think?”

“Give Mr. Butler my sincerest compliments,” he manages to say after he’s swallowed a bite. “Now. What did you want?”

“Ja- _ack,_ ” she says, fond but exasperated. “I only wanted to replace the biscuits we ate.” He pins her with a glare and she can’t keep a straight face, the feathers on her coat fluttering when she shrugs playfully. “And maybe to hear what you found out down at the shipyards _don’t give me that face._ ”

“It will take more than just a few biscuits to buy my integrity, Miss Fisher,” he says loftily, unable to quite keep from smiling himself. “And besides, we didn’t find anything at the shipyards.” Her face falls, and he lets the beat pass before he says, “However, there was a man in the pub a few streets up who says he saw something...”

 **v.**  
“You must let me make it up to you, Jack.” There’s a rustle on the other end of the telephone, as if Phryne is holding the phone between her ear and her shoulder. “Besides, Jane is home and missed out on all the fun.”

“Mm,” he says, but she beats him to the next part, a sigh gusting across the connection.

“Fortunately, she missed out on all the murders, too. But still. There’ll be sticky fig pudding and a roast and everything.”

“You know you don’t have to offer me food, Phryne,” Jack says quietly, fond. “I’d come anyway. I'm not _solely_ compelled by my gastric desires.”

“I know,” she admits, just as softly. “But I do enjoy seeing you happy, and you like good food so much.” Her voice turns sly, and he can picture the exact tilt of a smile she’s wearing. “You know, only a deeply sensual man could appreciate flavors quite like you do, Jack.”

“Well,” he says, and has to clear his throat before he can continue. “I’m… pleased to accept your offer. Seven p.m., you said?”

“I’m glad to hear it.” There’s something unexpectedly sincere in her tone, and Jack momentarily regrets the distance between them. “I’ll see you at seven, then. Happy Christmas in July, Jack.”

“Happy Christmas, Phryne.”

 **vi.**  
“Inspector, you have -- that is -- ah, someone’s here to see you,” Hugh stammers from the doorway, and Jack looks up from his paperwork curiously. He doesn’t usually have visitors that wait to be announced, and he isn’t expecting any witnesses for interviews.

Jane peeks out from behind Hugh with wide eyes and an innocent expression that makes him want to laugh. It’s the kind of face that made her an excellent grifter before Miss Fisher got hold of her and started filling up her arsenal with even more ammunition.

“Come in, Jane,” he says, and Hugh flees gratefully back to the desk, where the telephone is ringing.

She’s carrying what looks like a picnic basket, a silver-lined blue cape fluttering behind her. The color’s all wrong, but for a moment he remembers her being Little Red Riding Hood at the costume party, remembers when she went missing, remembers how frantically they’d looked for her. It’s enough to make him stand to formally offer her a chair, but she opts not to sit.

“I can’t stay long,” she explains. “Dot and Dr. MacMillan are taking me shopping for a dress for Aunt P’s birthday party.” She slips a hand into her pocket, shifting her hold on the handle of the basket, and Jack hears something shift and clink inside the wicker. “I just stopped by to give you your invitation.”

“That’s very kind of you, Jane,” Jack says soberly, “but I’m very busy. I’m afraid I can’t just drop this investigation to go to a party.”

“Oh please, Inspector,” Jane pleads, innocent wide eyes again, and Jack presses his lips together to keep from chuckling. “Miss Fisher would love for you to attend. She’s even having Mr. Butler make his famous blackberry tarts, and you can’t miss those.”

She sets the basket down on the desk, opening one side of it and pulling out a saucer -- Miss Fisher’s informal china set, if he remembers, and he’s pretty sure he does -- with a tart and a small, delicate silver fork resting on it.

“I brought you one so you’d know what you’re missing,” she says, closing the basket with a nervous kind of flutter.

“I’ll consider it,” he says, not moving to reach for the bribe, and Jane gives him a brilliant smile, a hurried little curtsey.

“Merci, monsieur!” she chirps, backing toward the door. “Miss Fisher will be thrilled.”

She dashes out the door, taking the basket but leaving the tart. More dishes for him to return to Miss Fisher’s kitchen, he thinks, and sighs.

“Sir?” Hugh says from the doorway as Jack reaches for the treat.

“Yes, constable?”

“Didn’t you already tell Miss Fisher you’d come to the party? This morning?” Jack looks up at him as he cuts a bite from the tart, raised eyebrow inviting him to continue. “What I mean, sir, is why didn’t you tell Jane you were already attending?”

Jack savors the tiny bite of tart -- buttery, flaky crust, sweet blackberry jam with no seeds to spoil it -- before he swallows and says, “A little extra incentive never hurts, Collins.”

Hugh nods as if he understands, but the furrow in his brow says otherwise, and Jack chuckles, fork clinking satisfyingly against the saucer until all that’s left is a smear of jam.


End file.
